James P Lynch

Children of Red Atlantis: The Development of Federal Indian Policy 1735 Through the Indian Reorganization ACT. James P Lynch

In 1934, then Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier stated that his purpose for creating the Indian Reorganization Act was to create a socialist-based "Red Atlantis" out of those Indian groups that voted to participate in and reorganize under the Act. Collier's efforts epitomized the zenith of federal paternalism both as a policy governing the American Indian as well as the promotion of a socialist-based ideological agenda. Red Atlantis was to become its metaphor. This book's goal is to depict and analyze the progressive development of Federal Indian policy beginning with the association between the colonies and provinces of pre-revolutionary America, through the early confederation and federalist stages of national political development (era of sovereignty), and the paternalistic and later socialistic stages of policy evolution (era of paternalism-assimilation) and lastly, the advent of the era of termination. Each stage occurred not in isolation from the preceding policy era, but was derived from it. It culminated with the recognized failure of the Indian Reorganization Act and the advent of a federally Congressionally-sanctioned termination policy.